The field of invention generally relates to insect control. More specifically, the present invention relates to insect capture and disposal using a device.
Insects are known to enter areas where it is undesirable to have them. Examples of such areas are inside the living, sleeping, & dining spaces in the home; in garages, basements, porches, decks, yards; and various businesses including offices, factories, commercial businesses, retail business, etc. Examples of the type of unwanted insects include spiders, ants, roaches, centipedes, water bugs, flies, bees, hornets, wasps, among many others. Some of these may be physically harmless but some can be dangerous such as poisonous spiders, e.g. brown recluse or black widows.
There are many products available for preventing insects from entering into unwanted areas or removing them when they do appear. These can be divided into two main categories depending on whether a user must operate the device at the time the insect is captured or killed. The first category of products is made up of devices or chemicals used for killing or capturing insects and work automatically or continuously while a person is not around. Included in this category are insecticides sprayed over surfaces by exterminators or by the homeowner, bug zappers, roach traps, fly paper etc. Some of these bait the insects in and others are just applied to surfaces the insects normally occur and various means are used to kill the insect including immobilization using adhesive, electrifying, or killing with chemicals.
The second category of products is made up of devices or chemicals for manually killing or removing an insect once it has been spotted by a user. These include insecticide spray which is applied directly to the insect, flyswatters, insect vacuums, etc. All of the approaches and devices in this second category involve the manual killing or removing of insects from unwanted areas and suffer from major disadvantages.
One common way for a homeowner to kill an insect is to use toilet paper, Kleenex, paper towel, etc. to crush the insect by hand. The problems with this method are obvious and include the requirement to come close to the insect and risk being stung or bitten; having the insect fall on you if reaching above your head; missing the insect because it can see you coming close to it; feeling the crushing sensation (which some find distasteful); and the difficulty in finding the insect in the tissue to be sure it was captured and killed. In addition, in many instances the insect is difficult to reach with a hand held tissue. This may because it is located high on a wall or on the ceiling which requires the homeowner to then stand on a chair, coffee table, step ladder, etc. to reach it. An insect may also be hard to reach because it is located behind an object such as a sink pedestal, toilet, couch, etc. A second very common device used to kill insects is the common household fly swatter. The major problems associated with this are that it smashes the insect on the surface leaving residue on the surface and on the fly swatter and it is not good for killing insects in corners or crevices or irregular surfaces.
Another way for a person to manually kill an insect is to spray insecticide directly onto the insect. Disadvantages of this approach are that they expose the operator to toxic chemicals which can get on the operator, e.g. hands or face. These hazardous chemicals can remain on surfaces, e.g. tables and countertops and potentially expose children and pets to these chemicals either by remaining on surfaces or while stored in cans. After the use of the spray, the dead or immobilized insect still needs to be picked up and placed in the trash by hand.
Another way to catch insects in the home is with a vacuum cleaner using a suction handle attachment. The handle has the advantage of keeping the insect away from the person while catching it. However, this approach does not ensure the insect has been killed and there is a possibility of its future escape from the vacuum bag. In addition, with common vacuum cleaners, because the handle has a hose attached to the floor unit, the mobility of the handle is reduced. Hand held vacuum cleaners suffer from lower suction power and small or inappropriately shaped mouth openings for catching insects. Also, short throats of hand held vacuums force the operator to come closer to the insect. There are hand held vacuums designed specifically for the purpose of catching insects that were designed to overcome some of these limitations. These devices have longer throats for reaching insects without the operator being close to them. They typically have bowl shaped mouth openings for greater chance of surrounding the insect to prevent escape and have a high voltage grid in the base which will kill the insect by burning it. They are usually cordless for easy mobility. The major disadvantage of such an insect catcher is that the bowl shaped end is rigid and does not work well when insects are in corners or crevices. The head is also large and does not work well for hard to reach places such as behind toilets. In addition, it is not always easy to see if the insect was captured and killed after its use and these vacuums are relatively expensive compared to flyswatter and insect sprays.
Another commercially available device designed specifically for larger spiders is shown in FIG. 1. This device has a brush head which closes around a large spider when the trigger is pulled to allow it to be restrained until it can be taken outdoors and released. This type of device appeals to those individuals who would prefer a “catch and release type of device which does not kill. Its disadvantages include that it does not satisfy other homeowner who want to see that the insect has been killed so it cannot return to the house, it will not work well with small spiders or other types of insects, and it requires handling of a live large spider.
It is an object to provide a device for capturing and disposal of insects.